Contents

Plot

Everyone on Sesame Street is preparing for the holidays on Christmas Eve. Elmo plans to stay up all night on Christmas Eve to see Santa Claus descend from the chimney. He falls asleep, but is awakened when Santa is stuck. Elmo nobly pulls Santa out, where they discern the cause of the extra mass -- a stowaway reindeer-in-training named Lightning. In gratitude, Santa offers Elmo a gift: a pink bear, or a magical snowglobe. He wants the pink bear at first, but then chooses the latter when Santa mentions the snowglobe will grant him three wishes, and Lightning recommends it. To test it, Elmo uses his first wish to obtain a glass of water. Santa tells him he could wish for anything, but to not waste the other wishes.

On Christmas Day, the excitement, joy, and happiness everyone experiences inspires Elmo, and he wishes that it could be Christmas every day. At first, everyone is thrilled about it being Christmas again, thanks to a news report given by Kermit the Frog. Elmo thinks it's a wonderful wish, but Santa thinks otherwise and returns to convince Elmo otherwise, he gives Lightning to him and instructs them to visit the future and see how Christmas every day is not a great idea. Elmo sees Big Bird mope over the fact that Snuffy is in Cincinnati, spending Christmas with his grandmother for a whole year, Maria and Luis get crabby over the Fix-It Shop being closed all year, everyone gets annoyed at It's a Wonderful Life always playing on television, and general unhappiness is evident. The elves, too, are annoyed at their continued work shift, and slack off on the job, producing a cow-bunny combination called the "Moo-Bunny". Other holidays, like Easter and Independence Day aren't as fun anymore either. Also, obviously, the only Sesame Street resident who isn't getting tired of Christmas every day is Oscar the Grouch. He loves to see all the broken toasters piled up by the Fix-It Shop, a whole lot of trash piled up by his trash can and that there's nothing on television but It's a Wonderful Life. He says it's a "bah, humbug" Christmas every day.

A year after that first fateful Christmas, the Fix-It Shop has gone out of business, Bob and the other singers have lost their voices from singing so much, Christmas trees are an endangered species, Big Bird is crying over missing Snuffy for a whole year, and even Santa is about to retire from his job. That's when Elmo realizes "if everyday was Christmas, there wouldn't be Christmas at all",

Guilty and realizing the wish was all his fault, he decides to use his third wish to undo his second [though it was originally for rollerblades], but he shakes the snowglobe so much that it flies from his hands and smashes into dust among hitting the ground before he can make the wish. All looks lost, and everyone else sadly leaves, until Elmo suggests that Lightning could fly him back in time to the Christmas Eve when it all started. He does and Elmo decides to pass on the snowglobe and take the pink bear, that is until Santa offers him the Moo-Bunny instead. Also proud of Lighting's part in helping Elmo, Santa offers to promote him so he may pull the sleigh with the other reindeer. The next morning, Big Bird is standing near the Fix-it-Shop alone and sad but is brightened up when he sees Snuffy, who tells him that instead of him going to Cincinnati to spend Christmas with his grandmother, she came to Sesame Street. They join the others in the arbor around the big Christmas tree to sing "Keep Christmas With You All Through the Year".